Stripboard Layouts
Permanent versions, drawn and checked before a single hole is cut.
These are the builds that stop being temporary. Every one is a layout drawn in
Copper Bottom, and on these pages the layout file is the
build document: download the .json, open it in the editor, and it walks you
through the board hole by hole, checks the strips for you, and prints a bench sheet. That is why
these guides carry no numbered steps and no hand-copied coordinates - there is no second copy of
the layout to fall out of step with the first.
They are in the order I would attempt them: the ones I have built and heard first, then the ones that are drawn and checked but not yet soldered. Those carry an Unverified badge and a banner at the top of the page, because a drawing that has never been built is worth an evening and a bag of parts and you should know that before you spend either. The size on every card is strips by holes - the board each layout needs - so you can pick by the stripboard you already have.
All 46 layouts
555 Theremin on Stripboard: A Copper Bottom Layout
the first layout in the series, and proof of the whole idea: the 555 theremin soldered onto a 9×18 scrap of stripboard, drawn and checked in Copper Bottom and built exactly as drawn - it worked on the first power-up. Download the layout file, import it into the editor, and let its walkthrough, checks and build sheet carry you through the soldering.
Opto Duet: Two 555 Theremins That Play Each Other
two 555 theremins on one stripboard, coupled by nothing but light: a slow engine ticks, its bare LED flashes behind the output cap, a homemade vactrol carries each flash into the voice's timing chain, and the box chirps. With the verified layout file for Copper Bottom, the off-board wiring, and the story of why the LED only works on one strip. Built, boxed and demoed - about 45 minutes at the bench.
Devil's Triangle Drone
Paul Stevenson's three-oscillator drone, redrawn for stripboard and built: three LM358s each wired as a triangle-and-square oscillator, a fourth summing them, six knobs and one output. No clever chips, the same eight-pin op-amp four times over. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and the off-board wiring - plus the bend I added: two switches and a pair of 1K resistors that let the three oscillators lean on each other until they lock, slip and beat.
Simple Ring Modulator
the oldest trick in electronic music, on 25 by 9 of stripboard: four 1N4148s in a ring between two cheap five-pin center-tapped transformers, three coupling caps, and no power supply at all. Feed it a carrier and something to chew on and it hands back the sum and the difference. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and the off-board wiring. Built and working with synths; what it will not hear is on the page too.
Opto Duet 556
the Opto Duet on one chip. An NE556 is two 555s in a 14-pin package, so the built two-chip board redrawn around it: the tempo engine on one side of the chip, the voice on the other, the same fourteen pads leaving the board, and the reverse-polarity diode on the copper this time. Ten strips by twenty-one holes. Drawn and checked, with every connection of the two-chip build asserted before the file was written - and now soldered, and working.
The Button
Pointless Electronics PE-001, and the smallest layout on the shelf: press the button, the light comes on. Four strips by four holes with one resistor standing on it, and the resistor is only there because the LED would otherwise not last the week. Everything else is a wire to the face. With the layout file, the netlist, every wire, a drill template for the aluminum box, and the arithmetic behind 1,300,000 presses. Built.
Clean Boost
The Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 on nine strips with no cuts and no links: one 2N3904, five resistors, two capacitors, about eight times the signal from a low impedance that will drive anything after it. A Schottky in the supply so a backwards battery does nothing, a 1M on the input so it is quiet about being switched, a power toggle and two jacks. Drawn to rescue the ring modulator's guitar input and it did nothing for that, so it is a booster in its own right. Built and working. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Katydid Delay
The one-chip delay, on copper. The datasheet's echo circuit value for value - both filters, both integrators, the reference cap - plus the three things a pedal needs: a 78L05 for the chip's 5V, a floor under the time pot, and a mix pot so the repeats and the dry are yours to balance. Time, repeats and mix, about 40 ms to half a second, grittier as it goes. An upright box for the synths. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Sound Fuckulator
Paul Stevenson pointed a tone decoder at a guitar. An LM567 is built to listen for one frequency and close a switch when it hears it; fed a guitar it spends its whole life half-locking, losing it and grabbing again, and a 2N2222 stage turns that into something you can put in a song. His word for it was nasty. Traced off his 2012 drawing hole for hole, with the two links it needs to run and the reasoning for both. Built here, which proved the link to pin 8 and settled his three controls: all of them land on his own four holes, the timing pot is a different instrument at 5k than at 100k, and the third one is better as a switch than a pot - it drops the output an octave.
Dual-Wave LFO
Two op-amps chasing each other: one integrates and ramps, the other compares and snaps, and neither oscillates on its own. Wired together they cannot do anything else - a triangle on pin 1 and a square on pin 7 at the same frequency, at the same time, with a 1K pot blending between the two shapes. The chip does most of the routing, so the board is four links and a handful of parts. The breadboard version of this circuit is in the breadboard series. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Opto Wobble
The Opto Duet and the Dual-Wave LFO on one board. The LFO goes through an on-off-on toggle straight into pin 5 of either 555, so it wobbles the engine's tempo or the voice's pitch, a CV jack goes into the engine's pin 5 through 47K, and a 2K pot in the supply starves the whole board. Built as drawn. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Cricket NOR
Two CD4001 quad NOR chips, eight gates and every one used: a slow oscillator, two tones, and a two-gate latch. A NOR has no Schmitt trigger, so each oscillator is two gates, and each keeps a spare input that stops it dead - the slow one chops either tone through a toggle, and a wire link holds the latch on PLAY, so the box plays whenever it is on. Two pitch knobs, rate, volume, two chop toggles, one 3.5 mm out. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
AD/AR Envelope
Sam Battle's simple AD/AR, by way of Eddy Bergman's stripboard layout, redrawn to run from one 9 to 12 V supply on a rail-to-rail op-amp. A gate in becomes a voltage that climbs, holds and dies away: attack and release knobs, a toggle for AR or AD, a button to fire it by hand and an LED that follows the shape. One supply is what removes the late start the original is known for. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Rungler
A small Rungler after Rob Hordijk: one 40106 oscillator clocks a CD4094 shift register and the other feeds it bits through an XOR, the register's last three bits become a stepped voltage, and that voltage bends the pitch of both oscillators, so the pattern rewrites itself. Two pitch knobs, two depth knobs, a toggle that locks the eight bits into a loop, and the two oscillators ring-modulated into the mix. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Power Starve
A voltage starve for circuit bending that cannot burn out its pot. The usual starve runs the whole toy through the pot's carbon track and cooks it at the interesting end; this one puts an LM317 between the supply and the toy, so the knob only sets a reference and the regulator carries the current, with its own current limit and thermal shutdown behind it. Eight parts, one cut, a bypass toggle for full voltage and a panel LED that dims as you starve. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template. Small enough to go inside the toy.
Optical Tremolo
A volume knob turned back and forth by light. A 555 is the LFO, a 2N7000 lifts the triangle wave off its timing cap and drives the LED of a homemade vactrol, and the cell sits across the signal and dips it in time. Rate, depth, an LED blinking the beat, quarter-inch in and out - an upright box for the synths, no footswitch. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Cicada NAND
four Schmitt-NAND oscillators on one CD4093, each with its own pitch knob and its own gate - because a NAND only runs while its other input is held high, so every voice has an off switch built into the chip. Pull a gate low with a switch, a touch plate or a photocell and that voice stops dead. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and the off-board wiring. The circuit is built and working, four times over, and so is this layout, the same board redrawn onto less than half the copper.
Grub Divider
seven flip-flops in a chain, so one square wave in becomes seven octaves down - each on its own switch and its own weighted resistor into a shared bus. The weighting is what makes it a mixer instead of a selector: turn them on together and the low octaves sit under the high ones rather than burying them. Makes no sound on its own; it needs something to divide. The circuit is built and working, and so is this layout, the same board redrawn onto less copper.
Dragonfly VCO
a phase-locked loop talked into being an oscillator. Most builds use the CD4046's VCO half and ignore the rest; this one keeps both, so a mode switch hands the pitch over from the knob to the phase comparator and the oscillator goes hunting for whatever is on the input jack. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and the off-board wiring. Built twice, on this layout and the larger one before it: the first sounds incredible, and this one sounds exactly like it is supposed to.
Mosquito 556
The Atari Punk Console on an NE556, ten strips by eleven holes, on the values from Paul In The Lab: 470K pitch and shape pots with 1K stops, a 10n and a 100n. Timer A runs free, its output triggers timer B, and the output leaves through a 10 uF cap to a volume pot. A CV jack bends the pitch through a 100K, and a pad waits for a sync out. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template. Built twice, and working: the first board, 10 by 16, and this revision.
Hive Drone
the six-voice Hive soldered down for good: one CD40106, a ceramic ladder from 100pF to 10 µF so every voice sits a decade from its neighbor, six pitch knobs, and six resistors meeting at one strip for a mixer that costs nothing. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and the off-board wiring. Built and working, all six voices, on this layout and on the first; mine runs on photocells.
MFOS Box Supply
One 12 VAC wall wart into three rails, so an MFOS 10 Step Sequencer and a Noise Toaster can share a box: +12V and -12V for the sequencer and a separate 9V for the Toaster. Two diodes split the AC into a positive and a negative side, a 7812 and a 7912 regulate them, and a 78L09 off the clean +12V makes the 9V. Fifteen parts, four cuts, a power switch in the lead. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist. Built and working.
Police Lights
A red LED and a blue one taking turns, about three times a second, from one 555 and nothing else: the output lights red going high and blue going low, so the two can never be on together. Ten parts, one chip, five links, four cuts, and a power switch in the supply lead. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Opto Duet CV
The Opto Duet with a CV jack on tempo and one on pitch, so an LFO or a sequencer can push the two 555s as well as the light can. My built v2 board hole for hole, plus one strip and two resistors into the control pins. The eyes stay in, and unplugged it plays as the v2. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and two 125B drill templates, one with the line out and DC jack on the top wall.
Siren
A 90s cop-car siren. Hold the button and the pitch winds up like a motor, let go and it coasts down, tap it for the woop. A wail switch hands the button to a slow second 555 that keeps it going on its own. Two 555s and a 2N3904 on a 9 by 21 board, with a line out. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Switchboard
A sequencer with no pots on the steps. Four gates of a 40106 are four fixed tones, a fifth is the clock, a CD4040 counts it, and two of its bits step a CD4051 through tone, rest, tone, rest. The sixth gate drifts along on its own and flips the mux to the other pair of tones whenever it likes, so two knobs, rate and level, get you a pattern that never lines up twice. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Analog Bit Crusher
A bit crusher that crushes the sample rate rather than the bit depth, which is the half of the sound most people mean. One op-amp buffers the signal, a 2N5457 JFET takes a snapshot of it onto a 1nF capacitor, another op-amp holds that steady until the next one, and the output is the input redrawn as a staircase. The second TL072 is the clock doing the sampling. Built as drawn, and a disappointment: very quiet, a little muffled fuzz and no crushing. The pot sits where a diode lets half of every cycle skip it, and R10 is more load than a TL072 can drive; the page names both faults, and a second board with both fixed did no better. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Hornet Amp
The amp every other build here eventually asks for, soldered down for good. One LM386 at a gain of 200, a volume pot and a speaker - because a 555 or a CMOS chip drives a speaker badly and this drives it properly. Seven strips by twelve columns, eight cuts, four links, and a Zobel network so it stays stable instead of oscillating. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template. The circuit is built, and it is loud; this layout, the same board redrawn onto less copper, is not built yet.
Octave Avalanche
One CD4046 VCO clocks a CD4040, and the counter's first seven outputs are that clock divided by two, four, eight and on down: seven square waves each an octave below the last. Each goes through a resistor to its own toggle and the toggles share one mixing node, so any stack of octaves plays at once and one pitch knob moves them all. This final form adds a CV input, a range toggle and an external clock jack. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 1590BB drill template. The first board, 13 by 21, is built and working; this one is not built yet.
Spider Sequencer
The first layout on this shelf that plays a tune. A 555 ticks, a CD4017 counts, and each of eight outputs has a knob that sets a note and an LED that shows where it is. Eight step pots on flying leads, the eight wipers back through a diode each onto one CV bus, the clock out on its own jack, and the reset on pads so you pick four, six or eight steps with a wire. Built to play the Dragonfly VCO. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 1590BB drill template.
Bridged Amp
The Hornet twice, for volume. Two LM386s, one fed the signal the right way up and the other upside down, with the speaker between their outputs instead of to ground - twice the swing, four times the power, off the same 9V. Gain, bypass and Zobel on each, one volume knob, a power LED, 3.5 mm in, an upright box for the synths. The one catch, in bold on the page: the speaker jack must be insulated from the box. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Tube Meter
A magic-eye tube as a level meter: a green bar on the glass that closes when it hears you. Every part from scratch: a 9 V AC adapter drives a small mains transformer backwards and a voltage doubler makes the 250 V on the board, with no mains in the box. A transistor stage and a diode clamp make the negative envelope the grid wants, a trimmer sets the shadow and a 7806 runs the heater. The one high-voltage build on the shelf, and the page says so at length. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B template with a window for the tube.
One Shot
Any filthy contact in, one clean pulse out. A TLC555 monostable that fires once, for about two seconds, however badly the switch bounced - the board drawn for The Groaner and not needed there, which made it a tool. It debounces bend points, turns a footswitch into a fixed-length gate, and pulses a motor. Thirteen parts, four links, supply pass-through pads. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Bug Mixer
Four bugs into one voice. A level knob for each of the Hive, Dragonfly, Cicada and Grub, summed in one half of a TL072 with the other half holding a buffered half-rail reference so it runs from a single 9V, and the mix out two ways at once: to the Hornet for the speaker and through a 1K to a line-out jack. Twenty parts, one chip, ten cuts, one link that runs diagonally under the chip. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Inside Boost
For a build that comes out too quiet. A small board that goes inside it, between its circuit and its output: one half of a TL072 with a gain knob from x1 to about x22, the other half holding a half-rail reference so it runs from the host's own supply. Four wires to the host and two to the knob. Thirteen parts, one chip, seven cuts. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
Weird Sound Generator
Ray Wilson's MFOS WSG on Andrew Sharp's stripboard layout, traced into a Copper Bottom file and checked net by net against Ray's schematic. Two voices of three oscillators each on one CD40106, mixed into an LM741 filter, with eleven knobs and seven switches on the panel. The off-board wiring carries Ray's PCB names, so his panel drawing works as it stands. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
The Popo
A police siren and red and blue lights in one box: my built Siren and my built Police Lights on one board, hole for hole, joined by two links so one supply feeds both, with a CV input on the siren's pitch. A woop button, a wail switch and a wig-wag. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and two 125B drill templates.
Ladybug
An envelope follower: audio in, CV out. Play into it and the CV rises and falls with how loud it is; a second jack gives the same thing upside down. Sensitivity, attack and release knobs, a THRU jack and an LED, all from one LM324 on 9 V. Made to push the Opto Duet CV around. With the layout file for Copper Bottom and the netlist.
XOR Ring Mod
Two oscillators in, one smashed-together sound out. Each input is squared up by a gate with feedback, so the outputs of the other builds go straight in, and an XOR gate multiplies the two: the sum and the difference of their pitches. One CD4070, one volume knob, both inputs on the left. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Locust
The Cicada and the Dragonfly on one board, because they already had the ports for each other. Four gated voices sum onto a bus; a CD4046 phase-locked loop listens to that bus and hunts it, and its own oscillator goes back onto the same bus through a big resistor so the loop hears about five percent of itself. Four voices are more than one oscillator can lock to, so it chases, catches and slips. A three-position toggle hands one voice's enable to the loop, and a switched in jack points the whole thing at a guitar instead. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 1590BB drill template.
Utility LFO
A knob that turns itself: one TL074 around a half rail making a triangle, a square and a sine at the same level, two toggles to pick one, a RANGE toggle for ten times slower, a rate LED, and a LEVEL knob whose bottom is the half rail, so the output is a CV that parks in the middle when the wobble is off. Drives the Dragonfly's CV in or a 555's pin 5 straight. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
CMOS Ladder Filter
A three-pole lowpass with no resistors in the signal path: each stage of a CD4069 is one inverter driving a node, a second inverter tied to itself to be the resistor, and a 47nF cap. The cutoff knob is the chip's own supply, fed through a transistor from a divider, so turning it down starves the 4069 and the corner falls with it. Copper Bottom reports three pin-shorts on it and the page says why they are the circuit. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Envelope Filter
An envelope filter, the quack: a state-variable filter whose two integrators are the two halves of an LM13700, so an envelope can steer the cutoff as a current. A TL072 buffers the input and amplifies it into a rectifier, the rectifier charges a cap, and the cap opens the filter. Sensitivity, Q, range and level, and a toggle for bandpass or lowpass. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
XOR Cross-Mod
An XOR gate is a ring modulator for square waves: feed it two oscillators and out come the sum and the difference of their pitches and neither original. Three 40106 oscillators on three pitch knobs, one XOR gate for the first two and a second that folds in the third, and a toggle to pick two voices or all three. The smallest board of the batch. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.
Grubworks
My Grubworks box on one board: an Atari Punk Console and the Opto Duet, each on its own switch, through a TL072 preamp into the Grub Divider's seven octaves. The Opto Duet alone makes its own beat, and an EXT IN jack takes over from both voices, with a gain knob and a tracking switch. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 1590BB drill template.
Master Divider
A Grub that needs nothing plugged into it: a CD4060 clocks itself off its own oscillator, a pitch knob sets the speed, and seven octaves below it reach seven switches through the Grub's weighted mix. On my breadboard it clicks rhythmically like the original divider, with the oscillator underneath; this layout of it is drawn, not built. With the layout file for Copper Bottom, the netlist and a 125B drill template.